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This is a weird one for CCGs, since it's hard to find a non-licensed game (as opposed to RPGs, where a lot of the core game systems - D&D, GURPS, Fate, to name three off the cuff - are unlicensed, and the licensed stuff tends to hover around the fringes (either using another game's system, or having their own cheap knockoff).

So, to make this interesting, let's rank my top 5 licensed CCGs, using the metric of "how much space they take in my closet".

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The realistic answer here is Magic. Assuming they don't royally screw the pooch, they're the CCG equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons - the "default" game of it's genre. As an aside, I honestly think Magic is in better shape, because the market realities make it easier to accept buying new cards every couple months, whereas there's some serious fatigue around Yet Another Edition of D&D. But neither brand is going to disappear for very long.

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This one might be the easiest thus far - if there's a single mechanic that is brilliant and could only be done in CCGs, And I mentioned it back in day 10. Even though I played so little of either of the games it was used in, my favorite CCG mechanic is easily the Force mechanic from Star Wars (and later just WARS).

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I have a habit of trying out games, and I like to keep enough to have two decks, more or less. That way, even years in the future I can at least play a game, even if I don't have full collections. And for the most part, I've managed to keep a couple hundred cards for each game. The exact amount depends on how much I liked the game.

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I'm going to have to stretch the definition of "convention" a bit here, since I'm not really one for big conventions. And the last (OK, *only*) big convention I went to, I didn't even buy any CCGs. So you're stuck with this story instead.